#1326 Impeachment: A History Of
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2019
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date 12/17/2019
Today we take a look at the history of impeachment starting with the crafting of the language in the constitution and on to how the impeachment process has played out over time.
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SHOW NOTES
Ch. 1: Impeaching Other Presidents - Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick - Air Date 12-7-19
Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Kate Shaw, a professor of law at Cardozo Law School and the co-director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy.
Ch. 2: Lessons From That Other Impeachment - On the Media - Air Date 12-6-19
Bob interviews Brenda Wineapple, author of The Impeachers: the Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation. She describes our country's first presidential impeachment as a divisive, acrimonious one.
Princeton history professor Kevin Kruse joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss what the current congress can learn from the historical examples of Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, and Andrew Johnson.
Ch. 4: John Dean On The Impeachment Comparisons - On the Media - Air Date 11-15-19
Brooke speaks to Nixon's former White House counsel John Dean to get his reflections on what other meaningful comparisons there are between these proceedings and the ones against Clinton and Nixon.
Ch. 5: Tom Brokaw Remembers Watergate - Article II Inside Impeachment - Air Date 11-16-19
Brokaw discusses his time covering the fall of President Nixon and the parallels to today, as the nation watches the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump unfold.
VOICEMAILS
Ch. 6: Let them gather information - Jeff from New York
Ch. 7: Why I became a member - Alan from Connecticut
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 8: Final comments on why it’s worth it to try to do the right thing
TAKE ACTION!
**TONIGHT (TUES. DEC. 17th): National "Nobody Is Above The Law" Protests Planned for Night Before House Impeachment Vote**
Curated by BOTL Communications Director Amanda Hoffman
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions):
- Opening Theme: Loving Acoustic Instrumental by John Douglas Orr
- Milkwood - The Cabinetmaker
- Cases to Rest - Bodytonic
- Felt Lining - The Cabinetmaker
- The Spinnet - Castle Danger
- Voicemail Music: Low Key Lost Feeling Electro by Alex Stinnent
- Closing Music: Upbeat Laid Back Indie Rock by Alex Stinnent
Produced by Jay! Tomlinson
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left by Gas in which we shall |
| 0:07.3 | continue our impeachment series this time learning about the history of impeachment |
| 0:12.4 | starting with the crafting of the language and the Constitution and how the impeachment |
| 0:17.0 | process has played out over time. |
| 0:19.6 | Clips today come from Amicus, On the Media, Deconstructed and Article 2 Inside impeachment. |
| 0:30.0 | Help us understand what the framers were trying to include and what they were |
| 0:37.9 | explicitly trying to take out that their British forebears had included in impeachment. |
| 0:43.8 | Sure. And I will say it was so interesting how largely kind of originalist the terrain |
| 0:50.0 | of the debate during the congressional hearings was and I know I'm not an originalist, |
| 0:54.7 | you're not an originalist, Pam Carlin is not an originalist, and yet I actually do think |
| 0:58.4 | this is a sphere in which it is extremely useful to spend some time grappling with |
| 1:03.4 | the founding era materials in part because there's so little else to work with, right? |
| 1:07.5 | Much of the time we have founding era materials and several hundred years of practice and |
| 1:11.9 | it's some combination of kind of examining all of that that I think helps illuminate present |
| 1:15.8 | meaning and here I think we have to do that too, but we just don't have that many examples |
| 1:21.0 | to work with and there is relatively extensive, although it's spotty, the kind of actual constitutional |
| 1:26.7 | convention history, but there is some documented history and part of the reason I actually think |
| 1:31.3 | it's so useful here is because so much originalist debate is kind of cherry picking examples |
| 1:36.8 | from a very mixed historical record and both sides can deploy originalist arguments about |
| 1:42.4 | what people at the time understood or what the framers might have intended and you kind |
| 1:45.7 | of end up at a stalemate. And here I don't think that's the case, I actually don't think |
| 1:49.7 | the evidence is particularly conflicting. It's sometimes a little difficult to parse, |
... |
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